I happened to glance out the window at work a bit ago, and saw a deer in the bushes below, and thought, "Cute deer!" (I don't deal with any of the gardening here, so I can still find deer cute, instead of considering them invidious vermin.) So I'm all watching it, you know, feeling soothed by nature and such... and the deer starts taking a dump. I'm hoping against hope this experience doesn't prove to be a metaphor for my day...

Yesterday was my day off. I got some Blood Engines bookmarks ready to be printed (mostly, I confess, so I could have a large supply of pretty bookmarks for my personal use, but if you're going to a convention this year and wouldn't mind carrying a few bookmarks and slipping them onto a freebie table somewhere, drop me a comment and I'll see about mailing you some). Then I went to get my semiannual haircut, and that shit is short now. I look like a jock. (Well, a somewhat podgy jock.) I was going to join some friends for lunch, but by the time I finished my haircut and some necessary shopping I was already running late, and I hadn't done any of my freelance work yet, so I retreated home and worked through the hottest part of the afternoon. In early evening I took a nice long walk, down to the shops on Lakeshore, then over for a walk around the lake, then a stop at the grocery store to buy some meat, and back home. My calf muscles are now complaining at me -- it was only about four times as long a walk as I usually take!

I'm stockpiling fun books for my trip to Portland. A galley of the new Naomi Novik dragon book, due out in late September. A copy of that enormous big fat fantasy The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, which people say is really good (I'm actually quite fond of high fantasy if it's good). A Kim Harrison novel. (I am understandably inordinately fond of Kim Harrison lately, after that great blurb she gave me.) I wish Elizabeth Bear's Whiskey and Water was out... I was hoping it might have shown up on bookstore shelves already, but had no luck finding it yesterday. Maybe Powell's in Portland will have a copy on the day of its release? I'd love to read it on my vacation.

Tonight we're having a farewell barbecue for my sister-in-law. She's moving away from her basement apartment to a house in the hills, and she'll be missed. (I mean, she's only going four or five miles away, but that's a lot farther away than "downstairs".) Should be fun. Grilling meat outside in fine fair weather is always pleasant.

John Joseph Adams did an interview with me about "Impossible Dreams," and the result is here at Sci Fi Wire.